6/24/11

GLAAD's steamrolling over local advocacy group CAR results in another embarrassment.

It all started with a Little Rock AR Advocacy group's call to action. The Center For Artistic Revolution (CAR) wanted its members to contact the Batesville Guard and request they amend their obituary policy to enable same sex partners to be included in free obituaries.

Enter MEDIA MEGA SUPERSTAR GLAAD.

GLAAD did as it has always done before proceeding autonomously completely ignoring the local advocacy groups and media who originally initiated the actions.

I had talked to the Batesville editor the day before and again today. Her attitude was at first caustic comparing this mans need to be mentioned in their paper to other peoples desire to have cats and dogs included in obituaries. Really!

I appealed to her sense of journalistic integrity and our conversation ended on a slightly positive note with the editor recognizing the possible gain in readership should they make this cutting edge change. But that, and nothing more. No promises.

Her crime? She played the transgender character on Degrassi. Read Sarah's blog post "Integrity" describing her outrage at the hatefulness of the emails.

Source Huffington Post: "Degrassi Boycotted By Florida Family Association Because Of Transgender And Gay Characters."

"Degrassi, which first aired in 1979, is known for portraying controversial issues. Over the course of its 30-year run (which has included several hiatuses and cast changes), it has covered teen pregnancy, school shootings, cutting, homosexuality and gonnorrhea outbreaks, to name a few. The show didn’t come to FFA founder David Canton’s attention, however, until last year, when it introduced a storyline about a gay quarterback and one about a female-to-male transgender teen exploring his identity and first relationship.

Canton told The Huffington Post that the LGBT content “licentiously appealed to the prurient nature of teenagers,” saying he believed that the scenarios also promoted behavior that doesn’t naturally occur in high school settings.

“How many high schools have a gay first-string quarterback who becomes lovers with someone else on the team? This relationship is extremely unlikely and they shouldn’t open this to dialogue,” Canton -- once applauded by American Family Association president Don Wildmon as the "quarterback" of the pro-family movement -- said. “And I think that it is statistically improbable that you will have a female-to-male transgender who is in love with a lesbian or bisexual in a school setting.”